Equal and Opposite
by Rargamonster
Summary: Oneshot, DenNor. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The force that destroyed the front of the car, the twist of his hands in response to my words, every single argument we've had over the years. Because that is what we are – equal and opposite.


A/N: I know I should be working on my chaptered stories right now, but this just kinda came out. Enjoy, I guess.

Warnings: language. May be triggering to people who have been in abusive situations. Unhealthy thought processes, unhealthy relationship.

**Equal and Opposite**

We've had the same argument so many times that it's become a joke. Not a particularly funny joke, more a pathetic one that keeps getting re-hashed at least once a week, unless I decide to bite my tongue and try to enjoy the good times while we have them.

I'm not the type of person to hold things in, though, so it always comes out, eventually, and it's never pretty when it does. I call him cold, he calls me an idiot, I ask him why he doesn't care, he asks me why he should, and I end up yelling at him and he ends up ignoring me until I can't take it anymore and relent. Apologize. Say it's all my fault. Maybe it _is_ all my fault. I can't tell anymore, it's all so confused. Maybe I shouldn't expect these things of him. It's not in his nature to be encouraging, to be loving, and even though that's what I want, what I need, it isn't fair of me to ask it of him.

But I want _him _more than I want all of those things, so I suppose it doesn't matter all that much. It's something I'll have to accept, I guess, if I want him in my life, and I do. I want him more than I've ever wanted anything, and sometimes I wonder how I ever managed, back in the days before I had him.

He's driving. He never lets me drive when we're together, always says that I'm too reckless, too unobservant, too much of a ditz or an airhead or an idiot to even drive us through the neighborhood without getting ourselves killed, so he's always the one in the driver's seat. And we're arguing. Again.

His hands tighten on the steering wheel. It's dark, and there are no streetlights, since we're winding through a forested mountain road, but I can still see enough by the light of the full moon that squeezes through the trees and by the reflected light of our headlights to tell that his knuckles are whitening as he squeezes the grips on the wheel (maybe imagining that he's throttling _me. _I don't know. I barely care). I glance back up at his face, and for once (finally) I see a shred of emotion on the face that I love, the face that I hate.

The eyebrows are furrowed the slightest amount over the cold eyes that I sometimes imagine to be warm and loving, and the straight line that is his mouth is turned down at the corners into a hint of a frown. I can tell more of how he's feeling from the way he sits, tense, in his seat, back ramrod-straight, shoulders as unmovable as mountains, arms stretched firmly out before him. White knuckles on the steering wheel.

_Good_. The thought floats through my mind, unbidden, vindictive, _maybe he'll finally fucking feel a shred of the shit he puts me through –_

I hesitate. I almost stop, because I love him and I hate to cause him pain, but at the same time, I hate him. I hate the way he shuts me out, the way he uses me for exactly what he wants from me and nothing more. I hate that he doesn't reciprocate. I hate that he doesn't love me, and I hate that he doesn't _feel_.

It hurts. It fucking hurts. And I'm angry, and I want him to feel even a fraction of what I'm feeling, and I don't know where to stop. So I press on.

"Sometimes I think you just don't give a shit about me. I could walk out tomorrow and you'd just keep living your life like it was nothing. You don't care. You don't care about me one bit."

"Then why are you still here?" His voice is toneless. No inflection. No indication that this discussion is affecting him anywhere near as much as it is affecting me.

My throat is thick with emotion, and I choke back the start of a sob that is welling up from the deep (because I'm not an emotional moron, dammit, no matter how much he might think I am, but this is just fucking _hard_ to deal with). "Because I love you," I say, forcefully, my voice coming out thick and nasally, "I'm here because I love you. Even though you don't feel the same."

I'm hoping for him to deny that accusation, for him to say that, no, he does love me. Even if he's angry, even if he yells, even if he smacks me in the face as he says it. I just want to hear it.

He doesn't say anything.

It crushes me.

"Fuck you," I snap, but he doesn't even blink.

He just says, slowly, "Sometimes I don't love you. Sometimes I wish you'd just go away. You're a difficult person to be with. Childish. Emotional. Unstable." I must have made some sort of noise, because he gives me a reproachful glance and continues, "This shouldn't be a surprise to you. Do you honestly expect me to just put up with your shit?"

I'm almost knocked speechless, but I manage to say the only thing that is flashing through my mind, "You're a monster. You're a fucking monster."

I look up in time to see his hands jerk the steering wheel, and the next thing I know, I'm flying forward, and my seatbelt has knocked the wind out of me, and the airbag is exploding in my face. I sit there for a moment, dazed and stupid and staring at nothing, waiting for my brain to stop rattling around against my skull, but then something clicks and I realize what just _happened_ and I start knocking the airbag out of my way so I can see.

"What the _fuck_ did you do that for?" I ask him, in a hiss verging on hysteria, and he turns to look at me, eerily calm. Deadly calm.

"There was a deer in the road," he says, "I didn't want to hit it."

And his eyes are terrifying, soulless and blank and fixed on mine, and I know just by looking at him that there was no fucking deer. He shows no emotion, not shock or fear or even concern.

He opens up the driver's side door and steps out, quietly and gracefully, as if there wasn't a single thing out of the ordinary. I unbuckle myself and tumble out as well.

"Bullshit."

He shrugs and repeats himself, "There was a deer in the road," and then his phone is out and he's calling a tow truck, as casually as if he was ordering a pizza.

All I can do is stare at where the front of the car is crumpled around a tree, and all I can think of are crash test dummies and crumple zones and Newton's laws and deceleration impact, and the fact that some faceless engineering team off in a testing lab has put more thought and care into my safety than the man I love has.

It gives me a lot to think about.

_For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction_. The force that destroyed the front of the car, the twist of his hands in response to my words, every single fucking argument we've had over the years.

He deals with everything when the tow truck arrives, while I'm still too stunned to move or do anything useful. We pile into the cab together for the long ride back to our home. It's quiet. No one quite feels like speaking.

As we get everything situated back in front of the house, the man from the towing company pulls me aside and asks me, in hushed tones, what really happened.

"There was a deer in the road," I shrug.

He looks confused, but he nods, and when it's all done with, I go inside to lie down, hugging a pillow and pretending that it's the man I fell in love with all those years ago, the man who used to love me back.

Eventually, I hear his footsteps softly thumping up the stairs, the bedroom door creaking open.

I pretend to be asleep (I can't handle any more of this tonight) but I know he knows I'm awake.

He gently slips into bed, kisses my forehead with a tenderness I haven't felt from him in ages, and settles in close behind me, an arm wrapped around my waist to hold my body to his. He presses his lips to the back of my neck and his words come out against my skin -

"I love you."

I roll over so I'm facing him and pull him into my arms, hold him against my chest, because maybe if I hold him there tightly enough, the man who loves me will stay and the nagging emptiness in my chest will be gone for good. But I know it will not last, and I know he will come to hate me again, because that is what we are – loved and unlovable, flawless and failure, equal and opposite.

Nonetheless, I treasure the words, because I do not know when I will hear them again.

"I love you," I return, because it's true – I don't know how to do anything else but love him.


End file.
